S3E2 - The Indigo Stain - Part Seven: Rollover Cafe
Title: The Indigo Stain
Subtitle: Rollover Cafe
Author: dracox-serdriel
Word Count: 2,476
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: kidnapping, illness, violence, language
Traffic held John up in Bristol; he wasn't back in Salcombe until nearly six at night. Sherlock hated waiting, and he spent most of the day doing nothing but. He paced. He phoned the lab and inquired about the samples he sent. Twice.
So when John got back, Sherlock was positively antsy.
"We need to get to the Rollover Cafe," Sherlock said by way of greeting. "Before seven."
"The card said seven twenty-eight, didn't it?"
"No," Sherlock replied. "It had three numbers: seven, two, eight. It didn't mean a specific time, it was a window of time."
"Sure it does," John said. "Don't you want to know what I found in the dairies?"
"You found entries starting when Caroline Kingsley first moved to Salcombe. Then one entry marked special, something wrong. Then a series of entries in some kind of code."
"Blimey, yeah," John said. "Did you get a copy or something?"
"No, but it is the only thing that made sense," Sherlock replied. "We know she distrusted the job her flat mate took. As a forensic investigator, Miss Berwyn would be aware of a need for privacy in public, meaning she would utilize code or odd shorthand to prevent others from reading her notes while she took them down. You didn't call to tell me what you found, meaning you don't know what it is, but you did know that it was important. The only logical conclusion is that she took detailed notes that you couldn't read."
"How do you know that she didn't just have bad handwriting?"
"Please," Sherlock dismissed. "Here's the car. Let me see the diaries."
They ducked into the car, which John hated because he just got out of another car, but what could he do? Sherlock riffled through the pages, stopping on one page in particular.
2013-10-04 Trans. Conf.
2013-10-05 Q. 615
2013-10-06 Q. 615, 616
2013-10-07 Q. 649, 616, 616.77
2013-10-08 Q. 637.77 / 591 ?
2013-10-09 Q. 649
"This is very simple," Sherlock said. "Deceitfully so, I think." He flipped forward to another page.
2013-12-12 !!! Transit
2013-12-13 364.16, 3-6 mo.
2013-12-14 364.16, 363.25 - SWB x2
2013-12-15 364.16, 363.25 - BLD x2
2013-12-16 364.16, 363.25 - ME
2013-12-17 364.16, 363.25 - C.
"Why didn't she label the bags?" Sherlock griped. "She didn't even make note of what they were in here!"
"You can read that gibber?" John asked. "How?"
"John, isn't it - "
"No, it's not obvious," John cut him off. "Don't say that it is."
Sherlock pursed his lips. "Fine."
"What does it say, Sher - Sean?"
"It's very clear that Miss Berwyn was tracking questions related to animal and child care as well as disease and medicine over the months her flat mate was working at the Grant Estate. Back in December, a crime happened, which precipitated her arrival here in Salcombe and prompted her to collect samples, which I now have but she didn't bother to label."
"I'm gonna ask," John conceded. "How?"
"Dewey decimal system," he replied. "Not exactly secret, but obscure enough. Six fifteen, pharmacology and therapeutics. Six sixteen, diseases. Six forty-nine. I think that's childcare. Six thirty-seven, agriculture and when paired with five ninety-one, which is animal husbandry, I'll have to assume that's indicative of guard dogs or something similar. Three sixty-four point sixteen is for true crime, and three sixty-three point twenty-five is forensic sciences. There's just this one we'll need to look up... you've a phone?"
John pulled up the internet on his phone.
"Six one six point seven seven," Sherlock read out.
"Diseases of connective tissues," John replied.
"Anything there treatable with injections of azathioprine?"
"Systemic lupus erythematosus," John said. "But this list isn't comprehensive. Anything involving severe inflammation might be treated with azathioprine... injections, though, I'd assume it was SLE."
"She was very thorough," Sherlock remarked. "Daily entries, each noting subjects but no specifics. No names related to the Grant family or her flat mate."
The car pulled up to a small diner called the Rollover Cafe. "See? Not even sixty thirty yet," John pointed out. "We've plenty of time."
People packed the Rollover Cafe. Sherlock and John waited nearly half an hour for a table; although, the primary cause for delay was Sherlock's insistence that they sit at the back table near the kitchen and the loo.
"You know we could have had a seat at the window," John pointed out.
"That would've defeated the purpose," Sherlock replied. "This is how they communicated. With that phone."
They had a public phone door the hall right before the toilet. John hadn't noticed it before.
"When I called, it sounded like the main phone line," John replied. "Not some public phone."
"Maybe someone was waiting for a call," Sherlock said slyly.
"Oh, don't do that," John said over his chips.
"Do what?"
"That whole, I'm clever and know what's going on and won't say it because I wanna watch it happen," John said quickly. "That thing. What's going on? I spent all the day in the car for this - "
Sherlock waved his hand, "Look."
A young woman approached the phone and dialed out. She didn't speak into the phone, but John recognized the awkwardly long number sequence. She was paging someone.
She ducked into the loo.
"I do believe that's Caroline Kingsley," Sherlock commented idly.
"Excellent, now we're stalking her," John mumbled.
"Don't you see, John? This is how they communicated without detection. Caroline came here at the busiest hour of the day, every day, and phoned her old flat mate."
"Paged is more like it," John replied.
"No, I think that's a rather new development," Sherlock said. "Since Miss Berwyn has gone missing."
The phone rang, and casually as you like, the woman reappeared from the loo and answered it. She spoke too quietly for anyone to hear, but the conversation lasted only about ninety seconds. Then she disappeared back into the toilet.
"Right, let's go," Sherlock said.
"Go? Go where?"
"Talk to her," Sherlock said as he got up.
John tossed down money for the bill and followed Sherlock. "But, we can't - "
It was too late. Sherlock grabbed for a basic OUT OF ORDER sign, casually slapped it on the women's loo door and pushed inside. John followed, mortified.
"Oy!" Caroline yelled, backing away from the door. "What're you doing - "
"Are we alone?" John asked.
The toilet had stalls, but all of them were empty.
"What - who - this is the women's toilet!" Caroline protested.
"You know who we are," Sherlock dismissed. "Caroline Kingsley, I presume."
"Call me Alexandra, please," she said weakly. "Wait... you're the two who were at the house last night! Are you following me?"
"We're trying to help," John said. "I spoke with Anita Hernandez today about - "
"Stop, stop, stop," Caroline said. "Please, it's not safe."
"Fine, Alexandra," Sherlock said. "Tell us what you know."
"That's just it," she said. "I don't know anything. Otherwise I would've said something."
"Let's start with you. Why are you going by the name Alexandra?"
"Alexandra Queen Miles," she replied. "That's my full name."
"Why?" John repeated.
"I was hired to help the Miles family," she replied. She continued in a whisper, "Old Man Grant has Alzheimer's disease, and... when Alexandra became ill, he had a hard go of it. So they hired me as a kind of a governess, to mind the baby and Old Man Grant."
"If you're only pretending for him," John began, "why can't we call you Caroline?"
"Because his case, it goes back and forth," she replied. "He's very lucid some days, and gone others, and people visit him. People talk. I'm not allowed to talk with other people outside the house, except a ring home. It's down in my contract."
"And people around here who know her, they just, buy it?" John asked.
"None of them come to this place," she replied. "Younger people, school kids, sure, but not the lawyers or anything. They all head over to the proper diner up the road."
"That's worked?" John asked.
"For the past three months," she replied. "Yeah."
"You said there was a baby," Sherlock pointed out. "What baby?"
"Lucas Edward Miles," Caroline replied. "Alexandra and Edward's son."
"And Alexandra? You said she's been ill," Sherlock pointed out.
"Something to do with her kidneys," Caroline said. "I don't really know, I don't really work with her. She's even got a different doctor than Old Man Grant."
"How old is the baby?" Sherlock asked.
"Uh, three or four months," she replied.
"Who lives in the north end of the house?" Sherlock asked.
"What? No one," she replied. "That's why when strange men turn up in the basement, I send them there."
"One of those rooms is used regularly," Sherlock replied. "Oh, the furniture is covered up, but there wasn't a spec of dust. Someone uses it during the day. Who?"
"I dunno, I've never been in those rooms," Caroline replied.
"Kendall thought this job was dodgy," John said. "She set up a whole system of communication and logging to make sure you were okay. Why?"
Caroline had kept it together up until this point, but she was shaking with anger or terror or both. "I needed money," she said, keeping her voice as low as possible. "I applied for everything. Every job I could find. When the Grant Estate contacted me, they told me there were special circumstances that would require me to be fitted for a special wardrobe. Not a uniform, a wardrobe. They also said that I'd have to change perfumes and makeup and everything. But the money was really good, and I needed it. Kendall thought it was dodgy before all that, though, because I applied for lots of things, but governess was never one of them. Not that I wouldn't do it, just that I didn't think of it. I don't have any experience with child or medical care at all. I studied English at school. I want to be a writer."
"Can you tell us your duties?" Sherlock asked.
"I don't have much time."
"Then speak quickly," Sherlock replied dryly.
"My room is connected to the nursery," she said. "So I usually check on the baby at night. In the morning, I check in on Old Man Grant. Then I have to sit and read in the sitting room for the morning, usually all of it. I serve lunch, have a break, clean a bit. Serve dinner. Then I have my free hour, which is now. After that I go back to watching the baby."
"How much interaction do you have with Old Man Grant?" Sherlock asked.
"Almost none, except when I check on him, and when he walks by when I'm reading." She bit her lip. "I need to go. They let the dogs out after dusk, and if I don't get back at the right time..."
"What was Kendall looking into?" Sherlock asked. "You were her friend, now she's missing. Tell me what she was looking into."
"She didn't tell me," Caroline replied. "If she did, I'd pass it along, okay?"
"You must've heard her say something," Sherlock advanced on her, crowded her. "Anything, even if it didn't seem important."
"I need to go."
"Not until you tell me something worthwhile."
Caroline was panicking now. "I... she said something about... development. Something about the development being wrong. Size being too big. But she didn't elaborate. She thought if I knew I'd be at risk."
Sherlock stood aside and let her leave.
"Great," John finally said. "Now we're two men in the ladies room."
"Come off it," Sherlock said. "We need to get back to a computer. You might need to call Lestrade again."
"For what?"
"We'll talk about it later. She was clearly upset about something, which means it's possible that someone has been following her."
They ducked out, somehow without attracting attention, and left the restaurant. The car took ten minutes to arrive, but John felt better waiting outside. Something about hiding in a women's toilet just felt wrong.
Sherlock refused to speak in the car. When they got back to the Old Thurman Estate, he started running around, collecting things.
"You said lupus," Sherlock said.
"Yes I did, but - "
"If someone had lupus, would it affect a pregnancy?"
"Absolutely," John replied. "Case by case, obviously, but it can be fairly dangerous for the baby and the mother - "
"Because the kidneys could shut down?" Sherlock asked.
"Lupus nephritis can worsen or start up during pregnancy, sure," John replied. "But like I said, it's all case by case, Sherlock. Some people don't have an issue at all."
"But that's not what happened," Sherlock said. "Not in the case of Alexandra Miles."
"What?" John asked. "Sherlock, according to Caroline, they have a new baby, so - "
"I should've seen this," Sherlock said. "John, I need you to call Lestrade."
"About what?"
"Missing infants," Sherlock replied. "Any missing infants or suspicious infant mortalities."
"All over Great Britain?"
"Yes."
"You have a time frame, or just any baby any time?"
"In the last three to six months," Sherlock replied, annoyed and bitter.
"You understand how that conversation will go?"
"What?" Sherlock asked.
"Lestrade thinks I'm on vacation spotting fake cases because I'm mourning you. What do you think he'll believe if I call him about missing babies?"
"The same thing," Sherlock dismissed. "What's wrong with that?"
"What's wrong with that?" John asked. "You serious?"
"John, I am fairly certain that the Grant Estate is currently home to at least one abducted individual, possibly more."
"Okay, and who are these people?"
"An infant, definitely," Sherlock replied. "Possibly Indigo Kendall Berwyn, although I don't think that's as likely."
"So the Grants have locked people up on their estate?" John asked. "And no one has noticed?"
"The Grants closed down an entire section of the house and no one noticed."
"I still don't understand that," John replied. "I mean, closing of inner tours, fine, totally understandable when you're kidnapping and imprisoning people. But closing down the northern wing?"
"Caroline Kingsley, John. Isn't it obvious?" Sherlock said tritely. "She thinks she's looking after a baby and a sick old man, not aiding and abetting a kidnapping. She's told not to go into the northern rooms, so she doesn't. If she ever does, most of them are actually empty. Curiosity thwarted, conscience reassured, she returns to her real job."
"Which is fooling everyone that she's Alexandra Miles?" John asked. "That's just... I can't believe that's been working."
"Alexandra left her job last year," Sherlock replied. "She pulled away from work, social life, everything except her immediate family. It's likely she did it slowly, over time, so no one thinks anything more of it."
"Okay, then," John replied. "I guess I'm calling Lestrade about missing infants. What will you be doing?"
"I'm going to look into other family members, of course," Sherlock replied.
<<< Previous Part:
Part Six: Smokescreen
Next Part: >>>
Part Eight: Carousel
The Indigo Stain - Series 3, Episode 2 - Primary Post
Subtitle: Rollover Cafe
Author: dracox-serdriel
Word Count: 2,476
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: kidnapping, illness, violence, language
Traffic held John up in Bristol; he wasn't back in Salcombe until nearly six at night. Sherlock hated waiting, and he spent most of the day doing nothing but. He paced. He phoned the lab and inquired about the samples he sent. Twice.
So when John got back, Sherlock was positively antsy.
"We need to get to the Rollover Cafe," Sherlock said by way of greeting. "Before seven."
"The card said seven twenty-eight, didn't it?"
"No," Sherlock replied. "It had three numbers: seven, two, eight. It didn't mean a specific time, it was a window of time."
"Sure it does," John said. "Don't you want to know what I found in the dairies?"
"You found entries starting when Caroline Kingsley first moved to Salcombe. Then one entry marked special, something wrong. Then a series of entries in some kind of code."
"Blimey, yeah," John said. "Did you get a copy or something?"
"No, but it is the only thing that made sense," Sherlock replied. "We know she distrusted the job her flat mate took. As a forensic investigator, Miss Berwyn would be aware of a need for privacy in public, meaning she would utilize code or odd shorthand to prevent others from reading her notes while she took them down. You didn't call to tell me what you found, meaning you don't know what it is, but you did know that it was important. The only logical conclusion is that she took detailed notes that you couldn't read."
"How do you know that she didn't just have bad handwriting?"
"Please," Sherlock dismissed. "Here's the car. Let me see the diaries."
They ducked into the car, which John hated because he just got out of another car, but what could he do? Sherlock riffled through the pages, stopping on one page in particular.
2013-10-04 Trans. Conf.
2013-10-05 Q. 615
2013-10-06 Q. 615, 616
2013-10-07 Q. 649, 616, 616.77
2013-10-08 Q. 637.77 / 591 ?
2013-10-09 Q. 649
"This is very simple," Sherlock said. "Deceitfully so, I think." He flipped forward to another page.
2013-12-12 !!! Transit
2013-12-13 364.16, 3-6 mo.
2013-12-14 364.16, 363.25 - SWB x2
2013-12-15 364.16, 363.25 - BLD x2
2013-12-16 364.16, 363.25 - ME
2013-12-17 364.16, 363.25 - C.
"Why didn't she label the bags?" Sherlock griped. "She didn't even make note of what they were in here!"
"You can read that gibber?" John asked. "How?"
"John, isn't it - "
"No, it's not obvious," John cut him off. "Don't say that it is."
Sherlock pursed his lips. "Fine."
"What does it say, Sher - Sean?"
"It's very clear that Miss Berwyn was tracking questions related to animal and child care as well as disease and medicine over the months her flat mate was working at the Grant Estate. Back in December, a crime happened, which precipitated her arrival here in Salcombe and prompted her to collect samples, which I now have but she didn't bother to label."
"I'm gonna ask," John conceded. "How?"
"Dewey decimal system," he replied. "Not exactly secret, but obscure enough. Six fifteen, pharmacology and therapeutics. Six sixteen, diseases. Six forty-nine. I think that's childcare. Six thirty-seven, agriculture and when paired with five ninety-one, which is animal husbandry, I'll have to assume that's indicative of guard dogs or something similar. Three sixty-four point sixteen is for true crime, and three sixty-three point twenty-five is forensic sciences. There's just this one we'll need to look up... you've a phone?"
John pulled up the internet on his phone.
"Six one six point seven seven," Sherlock read out.
"Diseases of connective tissues," John replied.
"Anything there treatable with injections of azathioprine?"
"Systemic lupus erythematosus," John said. "But this list isn't comprehensive. Anything involving severe inflammation might be treated with azathioprine... injections, though, I'd assume it was SLE."
"She was very thorough," Sherlock remarked. "Daily entries, each noting subjects but no specifics. No names related to the Grant family or her flat mate."
The car pulled up to a small diner called the Rollover Cafe. "See? Not even sixty thirty yet," John pointed out. "We've plenty of time."
People packed the Rollover Cafe. Sherlock and John waited nearly half an hour for a table; although, the primary cause for delay was Sherlock's insistence that they sit at the back table near the kitchen and the loo.
"You know we could have had a seat at the window," John pointed out.
"That would've defeated the purpose," Sherlock replied. "This is how they communicated. With that phone."
They had a public phone door the hall right before the toilet. John hadn't noticed it before.
"When I called, it sounded like the main phone line," John replied. "Not some public phone."
"Maybe someone was waiting for a call," Sherlock said slyly.
"Oh, don't do that," John said over his chips.
"Do what?"
"That whole, I'm clever and know what's going on and won't say it because I wanna watch it happen," John said quickly. "That thing. What's going on? I spent all the day in the car for this - "
Sherlock waved his hand, "Look."
A young woman approached the phone and dialed out. She didn't speak into the phone, but John recognized the awkwardly long number sequence. She was paging someone.
She ducked into the loo.
"I do believe that's Caroline Kingsley," Sherlock commented idly.
"Excellent, now we're stalking her," John mumbled.
"Don't you see, John? This is how they communicated without detection. Caroline came here at the busiest hour of the day, every day, and phoned her old flat mate."
"Paged is more like it," John replied.
"No, I think that's a rather new development," Sherlock said. "Since Miss Berwyn has gone missing."
The phone rang, and casually as you like, the woman reappeared from the loo and answered it. She spoke too quietly for anyone to hear, but the conversation lasted only about ninety seconds. Then she disappeared back into the toilet.
"Right, let's go," Sherlock said.
"Go? Go where?"
"Talk to her," Sherlock said as he got up.
John tossed down money for the bill and followed Sherlock. "But, we can't - "
It was too late. Sherlock grabbed for a basic OUT OF ORDER sign, casually slapped it on the women's loo door and pushed inside. John followed, mortified.
"Oy!" Caroline yelled, backing away from the door. "What're you doing - "
"Are we alone?" John asked.
The toilet had stalls, but all of them were empty.
"What - who - this is the women's toilet!" Caroline protested.
"You know who we are," Sherlock dismissed. "Caroline Kingsley, I presume."
"Call me Alexandra, please," she said weakly. "Wait... you're the two who were at the house last night! Are you following me?"
"We're trying to help," John said. "I spoke with Anita Hernandez today about - "
"Stop, stop, stop," Caroline said. "Please, it's not safe."
"Fine, Alexandra," Sherlock said. "Tell us what you know."
"That's just it," she said. "I don't know anything. Otherwise I would've said something."
"Let's start with you. Why are you going by the name Alexandra?"
"Alexandra Queen Miles," she replied. "That's my full name."
"Why?" John repeated.
"I was hired to help the Miles family," she replied. She continued in a whisper, "Old Man Grant has Alzheimer's disease, and... when Alexandra became ill, he had a hard go of it. So they hired me as a kind of a governess, to mind the baby and Old Man Grant."
"If you're only pretending for him," John began, "why can't we call you Caroline?"
"Because his case, it goes back and forth," she replied. "He's very lucid some days, and gone others, and people visit him. People talk. I'm not allowed to talk with other people outside the house, except a ring home. It's down in my contract."
"And people around here who know her, they just, buy it?" John asked.
"None of them come to this place," she replied. "Younger people, school kids, sure, but not the lawyers or anything. They all head over to the proper diner up the road."
"That's worked?" John asked.
"For the past three months," she replied. "Yeah."
"You said there was a baby," Sherlock pointed out. "What baby?"
"Lucas Edward Miles," Caroline replied. "Alexandra and Edward's son."
"And Alexandra? You said she's been ill," Sherlock pointed out.
"Something to do with her kidneys," Caroline said. "I don't really know, I don't really work with her. She's even got a different doctor than Old Man Grant."
"How old is the baby?" Sherlock asked.
"Uh, three or four months," she replied.
"Who lives in the north end of the house?" Sherlock asked.
"What? No one," she replied. "That's why when strange men turn up in the basement, I send them there."
"One of those rooms is used regularly," Sherlock replied. "Oh, the furniture is covered up, but there wasn't a spec of dust. Someone uses it during the day. Who?"
"I dunno, I've never been in those rooms," Caroline replied.
"Kendall thought this job was dodgy," John said. "She set up a whole system of communication and logging to make sure you were okay. Why?"
Caroline had kept it together up until this point, but she was shaking with anger or terror or both. "I needed money," she said, keeping her voice as low as possible. "I applied for everything. Every job I could find. When the Grant Estate contacted me, they told me there were special circumstances that would require me to be fitted for a special wardrobe. Not a uniform, a wardrobe. They also said that I'd have to change perfumes and makeup and everything. But the money was really good, and I needed it. Kendall thought it was dodgy before all that, though, because I applied for lots of things, but governess was never one of them. Not that I wouldn't do it, just that I didn't think of it. I don't have any experience with child or medical care at all. I studied English at school. I want to be a writer."
"Can you tell us your duties?" Sherlock asked.
"I don't have much time."
"Then speak quickly," Sherlock replied dryly.
"My room is connected to the nursery," she said. "So I usually check on the baby at night. In the morning, I check in on Old Man Grant. Then I have to sit and read in the sitting room for the morning, usually all of it. I serve lunch, have a break, clean a bit. Serve dinner. Then I have my free hour, which is now. After that I go back to watching the baby."
"How much interaction do you have with Old Man Grant?" Sherlock asked.
"Almost none, except when I check on him, and when he walks by when I'm reading." She bit her lip. "I need to go. They let the dogs out after dusk, and if I don't get back at the right time..."
"What was Kendall looking into?" Sherlock asked. "You were her friend, now she's missing. Tell me what she was looking into."
"She didn't tell me," Caroline replied. "If she did, I'd pass it along, okay?"
"You must've heard her say something," Sherlock advanced on her, crowded her. "Anything, even if it didn't seem important."
"I need to go."
"Not until you tell me something worthwhile."
Caroline was panicking now. "I... she said something about... development. Something about the development being wrong. Size being too big. But she didn't elaborate. She thought if I knew I'd be at risk."
Sherlock stood aside and let her leave.
"Great," John finally said. "Now we're two men in the ladies room."
"Come off it," Sherlock said. "We need to get back to a computer. You might need to call Lestrade again."
"For what?"
"We'll talk about it later. She was clearly upset about something, which means it's possible that someone has been following her."
They ducked out, somehow without attracting attention, and left the restaurant. The car took ten minutes to arrive, but John felt better waiting outside. Something about hiding in a women's toilet just felt wrong.
Sherlock refused to speak in the car. When they got back to the Old Thurman Estate, he started running around, collecting things.
"You said lupus," Sherlock said.
"Yes I did, but - "
"If someone had lupus, would it affect a pregnancy?"
"Absolutely," John replied. "Case by case, obviously, but it can be fairly dangerous for the baby and the mother - "
"Because the kidneys could shut down?" Sherlock asked.
"Lupus nephritis can worsen or start up during pregnancy, sure," John replied. "But like I said, it's all case by case, Sherlock. Some people don't have an issue at all."
"But that's not what happened," Sherlock said. "Not in the case of Alexandra Miles."
"What?" John asked. "Sherlock, according to Caroline, they have a new baby, so - "
"I should've seen this," Sherlock said. "John, I need you to call Lestrade."
"About what?"
"Missing infants," Sherlock replied. "Any missing infants or suspicious infant mortalities."
"All over Great Britain?"
"Yes."
"You have a time frame, or just any baby any time?"
"In the last three to six months," Sherlock replied, annoyed and bitter.
"You understand how that conversation will go?"
"What?" Sherlock asked.
"Lestrade thinks I'm on vacation spotting fake cases because I'm mourning you. What do you think he'll believe if I call him about missing babies?"
"The same thing," Sherlock dismissed. "What's wrong with that?"
"What's wrong with that?" John asked. "You serious?"
"John, I am fairly certain that the Grant Estate is currently home to at least one abducted individual, possibly more."
"Okay, and who are these people?"
"An infant, definitely," Sherlock replied. "Possibly Indigo Kendall Berwyn, although I don't think that's as likely."
"So the Grants have locked people up on their estate?" John asked. "And no one has noticed?"
"The Grants closed down an entire section of the house and no one noticed."
"I still don't understand that," John replied. "I mean, closing of inner tours, fine, totally understandable when you're kidnapping and imprisoning people. But closing down the northern wing?"
"Caroline Kingsley, John. Isn't it obvious?" Sherlock said tritely. "She thinks she's looking after a baby and a sick old man, not aiding and abetting a kidnapping. She's told not to go into the northern rooms, so she doesn't. If she ever does, most of them are actually empty. Curiosity thwarted, conscience reassured, she returns to her real job."
"Which is fooling everyone that she's Alexandra Miles?" John asked. "That's just... I can't believe that's been working."
"Alexandra left her job last year," Sherlock replied. "She pulled away from work, social life, everything except her immediate family. It's likely she did it slowly, over time, so no one thinks anything more of it."
"Okay, then," John replied. "I guess I'm calling Lestrade about missing infants. What will you be doing?"
"I'm going to look into other family members, of course," Sherlock replied.
<<< Previous Part:
Part Six: Smokescreen
Next Part: >>>
Part Eight: Carousel
The Indigo Stain - Series 3, Episode 2 - Primary Post